The Truth About Money - 3

Part Three - God's Provision and a $300,000 Debt

I counted the cars we have owned in our 31 years of marriage - 21. That's a lot of cars. What's interesting is how the cars we have owned kind of show our progress financially and changes as a family.

The lime-green Datsun 510 Wagon we had when we headed off for more schooling in Missouri was an indicator of how God was providing. On the trip out there we nearly lost it over a cliff in Wyoming. The bumper was a little mangled from then on but God provided a man who repaired our trailer hitch so that we could continue on in the next town, while we ate breakfast, for way less than he could have charged.

People think of prosperity as having lots of money and the stuff they really want but in the Bible prosperity is always the ability and means to get where God wants you to go. We were on our way to Missouri, to a town where the unemployment rate was around 20% with no job promise, a 10 year old car with a recently mangled bumper, to live the next 3 years in a 12X50 mobile home (trailer) with a noisy window air conditioner, and just enough money to get there. That sounds crazy but it was where God wanted us and it was enough!

I got a job selling Office Supplies on a route which provided a second car. The money I made in wages and commissions, along with WIC and some government surplus food stretched so that we had everything we needed for the time we were there. One entire semester was paid for from an insurance settlement when hail the size of small limes bombarded our car, producing dozens of small dents to go with the mangled bumper. I worked during the day and went to school at night. Walmart was not just the place Marla shopped. It was a recreational outing for our two-year old daughter.

Needless to say, you are only getting a few highlights of God's provision during the Missouri (we sometimes called it misery) chapter of our marriage - just like the Bible only hits some highlights. The bottom line is this: God's provision was always enough to get us where He wanted us to go. When our oldest daughter had tears in her eyes after trying liver for dinner we decided that God was able to provide something (anything) better. We have not eaten liver since!

The trip back was interesting. Before we left, some people at our "House Church" meeting gave Marla a word that God was going to give her the house of her desire. God had provided for three years of school and now (1983) he was providing for us to return to Vancouver, Washington. Once again, I had no promised job. We had a church family we would be joining with but it was not a paid staff position. Another family was moving west to Joseph, Oregon so we rented an extra large moving van. They had agreed to pay their part of the move but were never able to. God's provision was enough for us AND for them. If you have never been to Joseph, Oregon, it's worth the trip. I can still remember the excitement as we came down the Columbia Gorge on a beautiful afternoon, watching windsurfers by the hundreds skim across the water at unbelievable speeds. Thank God we were back among evergreens.

We found that house Marla was desiring - complete with the fenced yard, fireplace, and everything else on her long list that I had thought impossible to meet. God was building our confidence in his unmistakable faithfulness. We were going to need it for the next chapter in our lives.

Our second daughter was born a few months after our return to the area. I had a job by then but we didn't have health insurance so we worked with a Birth Center rather than a hospital. Minutes after she was born, we were getting signals that something was wrong. Forty-five minutes later we were in the ER at OHSU, in shock, and trying to comprehend what was going on. Marla spent the next month living at the hospital and I darted back and forth across the bridge between work and church commitments. Grandparents took care or our oldest. And we waited to see whether life or death was in store for our newborn. Day after day we saw heartache and the same kind of shock on the faces of parents and families as people came and went in the Ped ICU unit. Marla made quite an impression as she showed her stamina and ability to do the same tasks nurses were doing. Finally, after two open heart surgeries, dozens of "procedures," lots of sleepless nights and the prayers of hundreds of people, we took her home. Relief - yes, but mixed with a medical regimen and follow-up schedule that was taxing on Marla most of all. Then the bills started coming.

Having a child cared for so well by so many professionals, we learned, is expensive. We knew it was adding up because every time a nurse opened up a gauze package or put new tape over something a "little yellow sticker" was attached to the file. By the time Hannah left the hospital her file was literally bigger than she was. That's a lot of yellow stickers. Ka-ching! And the grand total is...? $300,000 and change! I watched Marla's face turn white and I laughed. People react in different ways when overwhelmed by some new reality in their lives. It's not that I thought it was funny. I just thought it might as well have been $1,000,000 (probably would be by today's standard).

One day while driving back to Vancouver in our Datsun 510 Wagon with the dents and mangled bumper, wondering whether my daughter would survive the night, it hit me. I have no choice but to trust God. He had already shown Himself so faithful in so many hundreds, maybe thousands of unique, creative, even humorous ways that making a decision NOT to trust Him made no sense at all. It would be like wondering if the sun would rise today. The pattern of its behavior tells you that the sun will rise today - just like it has every day of your life. Clouds block it, and a very occasional eclipse hides it all together for a few minutes. But you know it is still there. That's pretty much where I was. In a sense I felt stuck with my conviction that God had and always will provide. But it was a happy kind of stuck.

By the way, Marla and I ended up paying only for the ambulance trip from the Birth Center to the hospital and maybe a couple of other things totaling a little over $500 but that's another story of God's faithfulness.

Next up - Living On Nothing but Elephant Ears

The Truth About Money - 2

Part Two - Learning To Be Married - Learning To Give

By the time I graduated from High School I had learned one money lesson: If you don't have it you can't spend it. I had mowed lawns, done some occasional baby-sitting, and sold both Christmas cards to used golf balls to earn the little money I had - and spent it all. I got my first real job (McDonalds) when I was about 16 and worked it for about six months. Then I took part in some kind of High School program for kids learning to work and got a job delivering for an area Florist. I quit that job because of a conflict with a major High School event and delivering on Valentines Day. Between my Senior year of High School and college, a friend helped me get work at a local greenhouse. Every job taught me something new and I worked hard.

My parents helped me with the first two years of college. Between their help and several student jobs I was able to complete my AA Degree debt free. During that time two very important things happened.

1. I met and fell in love with a girl named Marla.
2. I learned about giving 10% to God.

To be honest, I was not very smart in either subject. The attraction to Marla was powerful but I was pretty immature. The idea of giving to God was clear but I didn't put it into practice for about eight months.This probably won't make sense to you but the reason I didn't start giving was that I already had some money (a few hundred dollars) saved in my college bank account. I couldn't figure out whether to start giving 10% including that saved money or only to give 10% based on money I earned from that point forward - so I did nothing.

About eight months later I went in to get some money out of my account and there was nothing in it. Not one penny. I had probably just spent it here and there as I always did. As I walked back outside I heard God's voice within me ask, "Are you ready to start giving 10% now?" I actually thought it was pretty funny that God had resolved my dilemma so that I could start obeying his principle. I have never stopped giving and it has been a pretty exciting adventure.

I also married Marla after those two years of college. We started with humble beginnings. I had a part time job as a Youth Pastor. We received enough from wedding gifts to take a four day honeymoon on the Oregon Coast. We moved into a two bedroom apartment owned by one of the Pastors at our church - complete with mushrooms which grew in the carpet because of condensation from the sliding glass window. I went out to buy a cheap couch to go with the bricks and boards we had for bookshelves and second-hand dinette. I asked the furniture store owner if he needed any help and began working for him; selling and delivering furniture. We had a car - a 10+ year old huge Ford LTD which got about 4 miles/gallon and burned about a cup of oil every time you started it. Money was tight and the subject was not one we talked about very well.

We bought food at "Mark and Pack" where they gave you a grease pen to write the price on cans, etc. rather than pay an employee to mark them and you bagged your own groceries. It was the cheapest place in town. We used coupons on top of it and gave homemade gifts as Christmas presents. It was tight. Marla coined the phrase she later taught all three of our girls, "Never pay full price." She worked a series of jobs to add to what I brought home from the furniture store and the church. Eventually the church brought me on as a full time Youth Pastor.

I remember clearly being in church one Sunday and having Marla tell me we had $2.00 in our checking account. It was time for the offering and she wanted to know what to do. Our regular gift at that time was $50 twice a month (which was 10% so that tells you what our income was). Anyway, I told her we should go ahead and give it and trust God for what we needed. On the way home I reached into the pocket of the jacket I was wearing and pulled out a folded check for $50. Someone had given it to me for helping at a wedding several months earlier and I had forgotten all about it. We learned: We do our part and trust God to do His.

We had been married a couple of years when we got pregnant. Marla worked her School Aide job as long as she could but then quit to be a mom. We received WIC which helped but I was still employed on meager wages at the church. When our Pastor/Landlord decided he had to raise the rent from $150 to $175 we decided we would have to move and found a house out in Orchards to take our baby girl to. The heat was a forced air unit in the middle of the house. I actually built a cardboard channel to make sure some heat got back to our baby's room. I can't even tell you how money stretched during that time but we were never late on a bill and always had enough.

We decided to sell the Ford ($300 - same as I paid for it) and looked for a more reliable car. I learned an important lesson. Reliability is better than popularity. I became a student of the Consumer Report and simply refused to buy anything with a poor reliability record for engine, transmission or electrical issues. We found a 10 year old Datsun (now Nissan) 510 Wagon which we drove for the next 5 years all the way through seminary.

The next part is about God's provision and a $300,000 debt.

The Truth About Money - 1

When I was a kid we were so poor that we went out to eat at McDonalds and my mother put the french fries on lay-away.

Well, actually that's not true...

The truth is that these are tough times for a lot of people. I happen to be one of those people who is receiving a salaried income at the moment and I'm doing OK but my family has seen tough times. Since our Pastor is on the theme, I decided to tell a little bit of my story.

Part One - Growing Up

My dad was a common laborer with an uncommon work habit. He worked for a company which has since become part of ATT. He learned the trade in the Army. In 30 years with the same company I don't think my dad missed a week worth of work due to illness and I don't think he ever turned down overtime (which for him meant their were days when he went to work feeling like garbage and nights when he went out in crazy weather to repair lines which had fallen). He did miss work (and paychecks) due to strikes. The point is that I learned to work hard and be dependable from my dad. Since then I have learned that those simple lessons actually have a value in money. People who are dependable and work hard build good references which help you get hired at the next job.

Looking back I would say that our family was at the lower end of average income. We never had a new car. Our house was probably 20 years old and under 1000 sq ft when my parents bought it. As the family grew dad just added on. We never had a lot but we always had enough. The one real lesson I learned about money growing up was that if you didn't have it you couldn't spend it. I didn't even think about borrowing money. That has proved to be very useful over the last 30 years - especially when Credit Card offers were coming at a rate of 3-10 every week a few years ago.

I also learned to learn. I'm only a guy of average intelligence but I learned to actually like learning pretty early. For me any project was not just about the project but about learning. Mowing the lawn was a study in efficiency - always looking for a faster way. Being curious and therefor a learner, I've found, keeps you alive. Learning also expands your ability to help others in a variety of situations and therefore your value to an employer.

The other thing my parents were is steady in church. We went to church every weekend. I can't count the number of "potlucks" I went to. Church picnics, Church services, and Church projects were just part of our life. Like most churches we had lots of different Pastors and other leaders. They came and went. We stayed. I went through stages of liking church, hating church, and finally loving church. My parents appreciated church. Sometimes they complained about what was going on but they saw church as a place to build and learn to practice their faith and gather with people who love God not a place where everything has to go their way. They stayed. I've learned that staying is important in a job setting, too, when something is not going your way.

My point is that before I ever got my first job I had learned some of the most important job attitudes and therefore already started to be more "promotable" than many of my co-workers.

These are tough times but we will come out of them. When we do, make sure you are one of those whose work patterns and attitudes put you out in front.

Chapter Two is going to be about the first years of my marriage, fights about money, and starting with very little.

Starter Life

As a kid there were a lot of things I never finished. A grand total of five guitar lessons, only one season of High School football, lots of unfinished books. Oh well. Who cares? There are some things you can start with all kinds of energy and then poop out on and it's no big deal. Life isn't one of them.

This is not your starter life.

There is no replacement for what you build. Fortunately, God has provided a way to repair what has been damaged but there is no going back. The message isn't popular but it is true.

That should cause us to live a little more carefully in 2009. Yes?